Priorsford (Historical Novel). O. Douglas
are so apt to develop tempers, I can't think why, for housework is so soothing. At times she was quite rude to me. Yes, everything I said seemed to irritate her; wasn't it sad? I would have borne with her, but Herbert said "No." It was demoralising, he said, for Amelia herself, and bad for my nerves.' Mrs. Turner smiled wistfully. 'I used to get so upset when I received a snappish answer to a kind question, and she was just eligible for an old-age pension, so we got her a dear little cottage at Woodford which happened to fall vacant--so providential. . . .'
She stopped.
'Yes,' Jean prompted. 'You wanted to discuss something. . . .'
Mrs. Turner glanced round the hall and, lowering her voice, said, 'It's Mrs. Hastings.'
'Mrs. Hastings,' Jean reflected. 'Isn't that the nice woman who has come to the cottage by the ferry? I think she'll be a great help to the Mothers' Union.'
'But can we allow her to help, dear Lady Bidborough? She is not a widow as we supposed: I've found to my great regret that she is living apart from her husband. Of course, I have mentioned it to no one but Herbert: you know what he feels about the sanctity of marriage?'
Jean felt that at least she could guess, and a spasm of inward laughter seized her as she thought of that gentleman's decent, cod-like countenance.
It was with great difficulty that she persuaded the rector's wife that it was the kindest as well as the wisest thing to say nothing.
'You see,' she said, 'we don't know the circumstances nor what the poor woman has had to bear.'
'But is it right to pass it over? Is it not our duty to make it known?'
'I don't know,' said Jean, 'but it doesn't seem to me that it's ever anyone's duty to make things harder for another. I think if you were specially kind to Mrs. Hastings----'
Mrs. Turner brightened: she liked to be kind.
'Yes,' she said, 'and Herbert might make a special point of preaching on the sanctity of the home, and the duty a wife owes to her husband. She might, who knows, see things in a better light. . . . I am so glad I came to you, Lady Bidborough. Now I must fly back to my neglected household.'
Jean walked with her visitor to the door, thinking what a decent soul she was after all, and regretting that she had so often found her tiresome and her Herbert dull.
'I wonder,' she said, 'if Mr. Turner likes grouse. He does? Then I'll send down a brace. They came from Scotland yesterday, the first of the season. . . . There's a chance that we won't be at Mintern Abbas this winter. . . . I think you've met our great friend Major Talbot? Yes. He has been very ill for months, and the doctors think that the only chance for him is a long voyage and a winter in sunshine. There is no one to go with him except my husband. . . . I may take the children to my old house in Scotland. It is a turn-up, isn't it?'
The rector's wife was aghast. 'What dreadful news! What shall we do? Mintern Abbas means so much to us all.'
'You will manage beautifully,' Jean assured her. 'I'll try not to put more on you than I can help. We'll arrange for speakers for the Mothers' Union and the Institute before I go, and make plans for the Christmas festivities. . . . I want you to be my almoner.'
Mrs. Turner's troubled face lightened a little.
'Of course,' she said, 'I'll do my best, but how we shall miss you and the children and all the cheerful bustle of this house! It keeps us all interested and alive. I don't really see how I can face having no one to come to for advice.'
Jean, looking about sixteen in a white frock belted with green, laughed aloud: 'You make me feel so old,' she protested. 'When I go back to Priorsford no one will think of asking me for advice: they'll give it me--and I'll feel young again!'
'It's quite true, dear Lady Bidborough, quite true. You are really only a girl and we all lean on you. I was saying so to Herbert only the other night. . . . What Herbert will think of this news I simply don't know. I'm afraid it will quite spoil his lunch,' and shaking her head, Mrs. Turner departed.
That morning, one thing after another cropped up demanding attention, and it was nearly luncheon-time before Jean was free.
'Anyway,' she thought, 'I'll have Biddy to myself for lunch,' and, remembering that she had said she would do the flowers herself, she seized a basket and scissors and ran out to gather them. But about a quarter past one Simson came stepping delicately among the roses to announce that Her Grace the Duchess of Malchester and Lady Agnes Chatham were in the drawing-room. 'In the drawing-room, m'lady,' said Simson impressively. He only put the fine flower of the county into that sacred apartment: the library or the boudoir were good enough for ordinary callers.
Jean handed Simson the roses she had cut and went off to wash her hands, feeling rather out of patience with the world at large.
The Duchess of Malchester was a round, little woman with a soft voice and a merry laugh. She was consistently pleasant to every one, but as her circle was enormous and she had no memory for faces, she seldom knew to whom she was talking.
She kissed Jean affectionately as she said:
'It is really too bad of us to descend upon you like this, but the fact is Agnes and I have simply run away. Yes. You see this is our month for entertaining relations, and the house is packed with them--both sides; and they're all taking the opportunity to tell us home-truths--So ungrateful, isn't it? Last night, after dinner, my sister-in-law--Jane Dudley, you know--who doesn't play bridge, made me sit beside her while she tore poor Agnes to pieces. At breakfast this morning--my dear, they all come down for breakfast!--an aged aunt on my father's side criticised me severely. We didn't know who would attack us at luncheon so we made off to find refuge with you.'
'We came to you, Jean,' Lady Agnes said in her soft deep voice, 'to have our feathers smoothed down: you're better at smoothing than anyone I know--Hullo, Biddy!'
Lord Bidborough remarked, after greeting his guests, that he thought they had a houseful of visitors.
'It's because of them we're here,' the girl told him cheerfully. 'We've just been explaining to Jean that the house is full of relations who all think they've a right to be rude. We thought we might just stand them at dinner if we'd had a rest from them at luncheon, and I said: "Let's fly to Jean." You've got rid of your lot?'
Jean laughed suddenly. 'I like,' she said, 'the note of true hospitality in that remark! We have got rid of them: in other words, we have parted regretfully from our delightful and delighted guests.' She nodded at Lady Agnes as she added. 'They were, you know.'
'But they weren't relations,' Lady Agnes insisted.
'No, but relations don't terrify us as they do you. We can count all ours that matter on the fingers of one hand.'
Jean held out her hand and ticked each finger off. 'Pamela and Lewis, Davy, Jock, Mhor. Five.'
Lady Agnes looked across the table at her mother, crying:
'Oh, Mums, aren't they lucky? We've got aunts and grand-aunts, and uncles and grand-uncles, all full of proper family feeling, all determined to spend some time every year under the family roof-tree. They look and dress like ordinary mortals, but they might have come out of the Ark so far as their ideas go. Nothing must be changed at Malchester. Though their own houses are quite modern and comfortable they resent any change there. We had positively to fight for electric light and central heating--hadn't we, Mums? And old great-uncle John patrols the house in a dressing-gown every night, scared to death in case we go up in flames. I got the fright of my life when I met him at midnight in the Picture Gallery: I thought it was the family ghost.'
Lord Bidborough looked across at the Duchess. 'Does this romantic miss frequent the haunted gallery at midnight?'
That comfortable lady merely shrugged her shoulders, smiling. She was enjoying her lunch and her company.
'Tell me, Jean,' she said, 'when do you go to Scotland? Is it the very beginning of September?'
Jean looked at her husband.
'Alas!'